


Sable and Snow

by orphan_account



Category: Good Omens
Genre: F/M, Horsepersons of the apocalypse, M/M, horsemen of the apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-14
Updated: 2013-06-14
Packaged: 2017-12-15 00:27:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/843196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short tale of inter-horseperson ructions. This was written back in 2005 for the <a href="http://lower-tadfield.livejournal.com/">Lower Tadfield Airbase</a> LJ comm and I recently rediscovered it. Takes place after the end of the novel <i>Good Omens.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Sable and Snow

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Smoking](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/23259) by http://blue-phlox.livejournal.com/. 



> It may be relevant to note that I imagined Pestilence looking just like Bruce Jones, who played Les Battersby in _Coronation Street_.

**One: In which a love nest is invaded by an old pest.**

The chiming of the doorbell eventually woke Sable, although Snow slept on untroubled, curled in a tangle of grubby sheets. He had brought disorder and dirt into Sable's fastidious, minimalist apartment; Sable would never have imagined he would be happy picking up endless trails of discarded fast-food containers, crumpled tissues and soiled clothing, nor that he would greet cockroaches as friends. They might have to vacate this place soon; the roaches were spreading down from the penthouse and the superintendent would surely discover their source eventually. He didn't mind. The only irritation in his life right now was the incessantly chiming bell; whoever was outside was leaning on the button. He couldn't think why the doorman would have let anyone up without buzzing him.

When he looked through the peephole it became clear. His kind of people didn't have to bother with doormen. In fact, the doorman was lucky if he wasn't coming down with something.

Pestilence's pockmarked visage was not improved by being seen in fish-eye view. One rheumy, crusted eye came sickeningly close to the peephole as he tried to see inside the apartment.

'Schwartz?' Pestilence coughed out. 'Schwartz, are you in there? Let me in, old man.'

Sable thought seriously about pretending to be out, or perhaps dead. Then he sighed and took the chain off the door.

'Come in, then,' he said wearily, as he opened it.

'Nice to see you too, I must say,' Pestilence said, snorting back and swallowing a great chunk of mucus as he hobbled in. He threw himself down in a black Wassily chair, which creaked in protest, and looked Sable up and down.

'You en't changed a bit,' he pronounced. 'Bag of bones.'

'I like to stay lean,' Sable said, crossing his arms over his chest and wishing he'd put on a dressing gown. The sight of Pestilence was making him break out in gooseflesh, and black silk pyjama pants were an insufficient barrier. 'It's been more than half a century, Pestilence. What do you want?'

Pestilence spread his hands wide and forced a grin of good fellowship across his inflamed features. 'Why, I want back in, mate!'

'It isn't that simple,' Sable said, sweeping a drift of Snow's vintage polystyrene Big Mac boxes off the seat of the other Wassily and sitting down. 'You can't quit and then come back as if nothing has happened. The world has moved on.' And time, evidently, had also moved on. Frankly, he was shocked at the state of Pestilence. They all changed their appearance sometimes, but he had become middle-aged, bloated, scarred, evidently riddled with the diseases of which he had once been only a smiling sleek-skinned carrier. How did that work? It made him uneasy both for himself and for Snow. But perhaps it could only happen to you if you relinquished your position as a Horseman. God, he hoped so.

'I know mate, I know. O brave new world, eh?' Pestilence clapped his bandaged hands together and chuckled. A little more dark fluid seeped through the unravelling gauze when he did that, Sable noted.

'My problem,' Pestilence went on, becoming earnest and pointing one scabby finger at Sable for emphasis, 'was a lack of vision, and I put my hand up to it. Lack of vision. Penicillin looked like the end of everything. I weren't looking at the big picture. The  _possibilities._  You know what were the turning point for me? The Road to Damascus? 1978.  _The Stand._  Stephen King.' He tenderly removed a battered, coverless book from within his shabby mac. There was a faded autograph across the title page.

'Got it signed and give him a nasty head cold,' he said with professional pride. 'Made a lot of people very nervous, seein' Mister King signing this book with a runny nose!' He started to laugh, but quickly broke down into damp coughing. When he had recovered and wiped his eyes, he looked up at Sable hopefully.

'I been keeping my hand in. You got to've seen it. Ebola? That were me. The hanta virus? I'm specially proud of that one. The haitch I V? Coming on lovely. And the things I've done wiv strep 'n' staph! See, I wun't just come to you empty-handed. I've got a portfolio. You got to see I'd be an asset to the old team. So what do you say, Schwartzy old boy? Let's get the band back together.'

Sable leaned back and pinched the bridge of his nose. 'How do I put this...'

'Who's your friend?'

Snow was lounging in the bedroom doorway, a pale figure in nicotine-yellow boxer shorts. His slender neck and chest were dappled with the bruises of Sable's hungry kisses. When he had their full attention he sauntered into the living-room and cocked a questioning eyebrow at Sable. 'Well?'

'So you're the new boy,' Pestilence said. He hawked and spat into the vase of dried teazel at his side. 'Johnny come lately.'

'Oh, I was always there,' Snow said. He sat down on the arm of Sable's chair, leaning gracefully with his arm possessively around the dark man's shoulders. 'I was in the first midden. I was downstream from their earliest settlements, bathing in the rich filth. I gave you the conditions in which to thrive, in all the dark slums there ever were, but you never noticed or thanked me. And as your star fell, mine rose. It's only fair.'

'They've only had a name for you this last century,' Pestilence spat back. 'You've only worried them since what, the sixties? They've known me and feared me from the first cough, the first wound that turned nasty. They live amid  _you_  but I live within  _them_.' He shook  _The Stand_  in Snow's face. 'I'm in the sodding  _books!'_

'And they kill legions of trees to print books and leaflets about how bad I am... and recycle the paper, and make toxic waste doing it,' Snow said, a smile flickering on his lips. 'I'm not saying there's no place for you, old-timer. But your place is not here.'

He turned his head slightly and locked eyes with Sable, then bent to nip the lobe of his ear. And Sable, joyously helpless, could only nod.

* * *

**Two: In which Famine and Pollution enjoy a late lunch.**

At a quarter past two in the afternoon, the Burger Lord was quiet. The manager went about snippily reminding the staff, tired from the lunch rush, 'If you have time to lean, you have time to clean,' an epigram he considered profoundly wise.

The girl wiping down tables was covertly casting irritated glances at the two men occupying the corner booth. If she could just get the whole dining area clean at once, and it would stay that way for a couple of minutes before the next lot of pigs came in, it would be balm to her soul. All customers were pigs, and these two were particularly bad. The one with the little dark beard was actually smoking, in defiance of the health laws and clearly posted signs, and she had told the manager twice but he wasn't doing anything about it. She wasn't paid enough to deal with these asshats.

'You never let me take you anywhere nice,' Sable complained. He blew smoke in Snow's face and watched him breathe it in deeply. He said second-hand smoke was better.

'You know I only like junk food,' Snow replied. 'Besides, you never cook at home, so this is as close as I'll get to eating a meal you made.' He took another juicy bite of a double bacon cheeseburger almost devoid of nutritional value, before returning to carefully plastering the greaseproof paper wrapper to the tabletop, gluing it down with ketchup.

'You're an artist,' Sable told him, admiring the faint curls of smoke that were only now escaping from Snow's nose and mouth, returning from his inner depths. It must be hell in there, or heaven, depending on your perspective.

He nudged Snow's knee with his own. 'Let's go to the Park,' he said. 'We can feed the ducks low-carb bread and litter with the wrapper. We can do perverted things in the Ramble and make the other perverts jealous.'

'I thought we could go for a cruise on a garbage barge.' Sable gave him a disappointed look. 'You bring me to New York and expect me not to see the sights?' Snow tapped a finger to his lips. 'Hit me.' Sable leaned in and gave him another puff of cigarette smoke. He inhaled it rapturously, closing his eyes. 'You're my own factory chimney.'

'Just so long as you're happy.'

'Oh, I am.' Snow nibbled a french-fry thoughtfully. 'Our visitor this morning...'

'Should not be coming back. I was proud of how you saw him off.'

'He seemed determined, though. And I know  _you'll_  be on my side, but what if he talks to the others? What if they think I should leave and let him back in?'

'You'll always have a place with me.'

'That's sweet. You're sweet. But I don't want to have to fall back on that.' He shifted in his seat, and scraps of paper and plastic film spilled from the baggy pockets of his cargo pants. 'I'll have to think more about this.'

* * *

**Three: In which an old pest finds an old friend.**

Scarlet wandered through the refugee camp, her sleeveless shirt sticking to her back in the swampy Congolese heat. Recent events had been disappointing; it reinvigorated her to get down among the little people, to see that she was really making a difference to so many lives. She smiled sweetly at a young boy who until that moment had not been sure he had the courage to be a soldier like his brother. In a few days he would be just like his brother; flies sipping the last moisture from their sticky eyes as they gazed unseeing at the bright sky.

She passed the Médécins Sans Frontières hospital tent and pursed her crimson lips in a little moue of frustration; spoilsports. Still, they added to the interest of the thing. A sunburnt white doctor issued forth from the tent, stripping off his blood-streaked latex gloves and stuffing them in the pocket of his stained lab coat. No doubt he would wash them off and use them again, with supplies as short as they were. The man was a wreck; surely he would only be able to practise here at the ends of the earth, where people could not be choosy, and his dissolution could be veiled by charity. At the quickest glance Scarlet speculatively diagnosed acute high blood pressure, cirrhosis of the liver and half a dozen associated ailments.

She glanced again. The white doctor came towards her, a smile spreading over his inflamed features, cracking the coldsore that bloomed on the border of his upper lip.

'Cherry, my love!'

Her answering smile was as bright as the flash of a tracer round. 'De Wit!' She embraced him, feeling the rumble of his congested breathing through her own ribcage. 'What are you doing here?'

'Same as you, I imagine, the duty. Oh, you're looking good, gal! This climate must agree with you.' He smacked a kiss on her cheek and she resisted the temptation to wipe it away.

'And you - I've seen how the wounds suppurate.' She held him back at arm's length and looked him up and down. 'You look  _horrible.'_

'Ta, love.'

'I haven't seen you in so many years - I wasn't sure you were even...' She trailed off uncomfortably.

'Keeping me head down. Biding me time.' He tapped the side of his nose and winked.

'I've missed you.' She hugged him again, taking the opportunity to wipe her cheek against his shoulder. 'We had some times, didn't we?'

'Still a great team, chick. They may not be flingin' manky dead horses over each other's walls any more, but you'n'me'll always go together.' They linked arms and walked back through the camp. Every man with eyesight stared at the white doctor in mute, abject resentment and envy. They would open a bottle, drink to old times, and when De Wit turned the conversation that way, drink to the future...

* * *

**Four: In which people lie back but do not think of England.**

Scarlet lay on her back in her camp bed, gazing up into the cloudy folds of her mosquito net. She had sent De Wit back to wherever he was dossing, after she'd given in to nostalgia, sentimentality and a lot of red wine and let him have her, breaking out in gooseflesh at his feverish touch, shivering with enjoyment of the tender repulsion she felt for him.

The only men she loved were the carcases, the casualties, still warm or warm again, mutely offering their post-mortem tumescence for her pleasure. She could, as the rather crude song had it, make a dead man come. But the only sound she could coax from their lips was a wet belch of escaping gas; they didn't gasp and moan, didn't call her foolish pet names,  _bella Bella,_  didn't profess adoration in the midst of broken curses, didn't cry out in ecstasy and fall choking and bubbling on her breast. There was definitely something to be said for men with something to say.

Now she was gently purging from her system the uncountable pathogens he'd smeared onto her or spurted into her, his lover's gifts. In the old days he'd always taken such pleasure and pride in showing her his work and she had given it the admiration it deserved, as another crusader coughed into an apoplexy, as another wounded soldier was eaten up by gangrene, as another camp follower winced when fingers or cock pressed her ulcerated flesh. When microscopes came in, how thrilled he was to show her the intricate twitching shapes of his little creatures!

Pleasure and pride, that was it - and power. The power had gone out of him towards the end, but it seemed to be coming back now. The last time she had seen him this excited had been over the influenza. They had collaborated on that one too, when she became the Great War, the World War, such wonderful ringing names, both of them riding so high - but short decades later, when she was going onto new strengths, he was falling away, giving in.  
It was different now, better now. She wondered what he had up that stained white sleeve of his.

 

Sable lay on his back in his king-size bed, Snow's sleeping head pillowed by his shoulder, the boy's breath whispering regularly over his chest. Sable bent his head and inhaled the sharp, dusty scent of his tumbled, greasy hair. God, the smells and tastes of Snow; he had no appetite for wholesome food but hungrily licked the everpresent patina of grime from his skin. His sheets and pillowslips were grubby Shrouds of Turin, printed with his slim figure. You could take Snow into the shower and alternate scrubbing him and fucking him by the hour, and he would still leave dark traces on the bone-white towels. 

Snow had sworn to him that he was the first, and he hadn't even cared as long as he was now the only, as long as he alone could work himself up inside that sweet pink pucker that seemed the only pristine thing about Snow.  _Only me,_  he thought as he ground against the tight squeeze of muscle, plunged inside the endless silky heat, and 'Only you' Snow whispered as he lay exhausted and blissful afterwards. They would share a cigarette then, until Snow fell asleep, the last wisps of smoke curling from his whisker-burned lips.

Today had been a good day.  _Another_  good day. He had sulked a little at first on the garbage barge, until Snow's delight had won him over. The rats had danced for them, the gulls flown in formation. The smog over the city billowed into cloudy heart shapes that dissolved like thought in Snow's pale eyes. The dirty harbour water smacked salaciously on the hull of the barge, and Sable wrapped his arms around Snow, kissing him, sliding his hands inside the loose waist of his pants and finding his silky bare arse to stroke, to squeeze. They made love on the double doors of a broken down monster refrigerator, flat on its back, Snow moaning and straining against him, begging him first to be gentle and then to be rough.

'Do you love me?' Snow breathed, gazing up into the sky.

'You know I do,' Sable groaned. 'Let me... just let me...'

'Yes.'

'My dirty, sweet boy,' Sable whispered, on his back in his bed that had become theirs. 

* * *

**Five: In which War and Pestilence are on the move.**

'How long do you think you'll be here, duck?' De Wit asked, watching Scarlet roll a chilled can of beer over her collarbones. He'd chucked some vaccines out of the little gas-powered fridge in the hospital tent. They weren't needed here anyway; everyone else in camp was dead or dying. Everyone who could still move had abandoned the place the day before.

'Think I'll move out tomorrow,' she drawled, enjoying his begging eyes on her. 'I've had my fun here.'

'Any destination in mind?'

'That's the wonderful thing... wherever I go  _becomes_  a destination.'

'Only, if you en't heading anywhere in particular, I wondered if you might like to stick together a while. And I sort of do have somewhere in mind.'

On the plane out he started to tell her all about it. Scarlet had seen that he had something on his mind he wanted to share, but the exact subject turned out to be a surprise.

'You know Schwartz has taken up with the new boy?'

'Oh... yes. Yeah, now I think about it, the last time we were all together there were a lot of significant glances being exchanged. Sable looked keen.'

'Now, I've got nothing against the bumboys, far from it, I were thrilled when I realised the possibilities of unprotected anal howsyourfather, but I think it's disgustin'. The two of them, thick as thieves. Schwartz is a slave to that lad.'

'I was just thinking how ironic it is to have Famine for your sugar daddy,' Scarlet mused. 'But you think it's Snow who has the upper hand?'

'Schwartz won't listen to sense nor reason when he's about,' De Wit spat. 'I'm only asking for my rights!'

'What do you want me to do about it?' she asked sympathetically.

'I like the way you get right to the point, gel, I always have. Just to be on my side, eh? Speak up for an old pal. You could see your way clear to do that, cun't you?' His eyes were begging her again, even more ardently, she was amused and a little stung to see, than when he wanted to come into her bed. She had let him do that again; it might be time to put on the brakes or he would start to expect it, and she enjoyed it so much more when he was so  _grateful._

'I need to trust the people I work with,' Scarlet said, and took a sip of her vodka and cranberry to make him wait. 'I've known you since you were a sniffle and I was a difference of opinion. This Snow boy... I can't say I really know him. Or care to.'

De Wit grinned. 'Oh, that's my girl.'

* * *

**Six: In which Famine and Pollution are up to no good.**

'You might think so, but the fact is, they do it to themselves.'

'Well, yes, I know about the diets, and anorexia nervosa and so forth. But, you know, natural disasters-'

'Have surprisingly little to do with it,' Sable said. He watched the elevator numbers brighten and dim and shifted the sack of groceries in his arms - if you could call them that. They had spent the better part of an hour in convenience stores gathering a cornucopia of Twinkies, Ho-Hos, Ding-Dongs, Chocodiles and similarly inanely-named treats.  _Grosseries_  might be better, he thought.

'No, come on, flood, drought, affecting millions of people-' Snow mumbled around a mouthful of synthetic sponge and creme filling, which should never be mistaken for nature's own cream.

'Won't cause a famine if they have anything like an organised government - at least, one that regards famine as a  _problem,_  rather than an opportunity. A.D. 6 - the Emperor Augustus gives famine relief to two hundred thousand people. That's with a Roman Empire level of infrastructure and communications, mind. 1493 - the Ming Dynasty in China give aid to more than two million. For contrast, 1958 to 1961, China, one big famine, as many as thirty million starve. Not because relief couldn't be given to them, but because the Party were keener to apply Marxist theory than to actually make a go of peasant agriculture. William A. Dando, in  _The Geography of Famine_  - a  _sweet_ , flattering book - says that  _all_  of the famines in Russia from 971 to 1970 "can be predominately attributed to human factors." You see what I'm getting at?'*

'That's insane,' said Snow, with something like dawning admiration.

'And you don't know from insanity? Remember Live Aid? I laughed till I cried. All those people singing their hearts out to raise money for the poor, starving Africans - and no-one ever thinks about the quantities of food, medicine and other supplies that are blockaded or impounded by the _governments_  of famine-stricken countries, because it's not in their  _interest_  to alleviate the famine. There are people they're starving out. Rebels. Enemies. They're only their countrymen by modern geographic definitions. And this is the kind of thing that I just have to keep an eye on and occasionally nudge in the right direction, and  _they do all the work for me._  In this century, more food is being produced, and more people are starving, than at any time in history.' He allowed himself a small, vulpine smile.

'You. Are. Awesome,' said Snow, very solemnly. 'I have to kiss you now.'

'Not with a mouthful of that muck, you don't.'

'Oh come on.'

'No.'

'I'll swallow.'

'Thanks, but  _no.'_

'Come onnnnn.' Snow leaned in, running the tip of his tongue over his lips. The bag between them crinkled. Sable was just giving in when a bell chimed and the elevator doors opened. Snow snatched the groceries from his numb hands and strode into the penthouse foyer. Catching his breath, Sable noticed that he had left a wad of well-chewed Juicy Fruit neatly plastered over the ground floor button. He gave chase just as the doors began to sigh closed.  
Snow had dumped the groceries on the floor and himself on the black leather couch. His dirty sneakers were up on the leather and had already scuffed the seat.

'Make room,' Sable said, pushing the boy's legs off the couch and sitting down beside him. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and made a show of dabbing a smear of creme from the corner of Snow's mouth. ' _Now_  I'll have my kiss.'

'The mood's gone now,' Snow said, with a flicker of a smile, but he complied, and slipped his tongue between Sable's lips for a second. He drew back and looked at him seriously.

'Thirty million?' he asked. 

'What? Yes.'

'That is  _so_  hot.' He wrapped his arms around Sable's neck and kissed him deeply. He still tasted a little like that disgusting creme, but Sable thought that would fade. The wet slip of his lips, the rough-soft living heat of his tongue, were more than enough for him. He stroked Snow's back, softly bit his lower lip, drew his tongue into his own mouth and sucked, feeling and hearing the faint vibration of Snow's moan.  _Slow down,_  he thought.  _You don't have to rush. This isn't a limited-time-only offer._  He drew back and looked into Snow's cloudy eyes as he stroked his hair back from his forehead.

'What?'

'I like looking at you. You're very lovely. I like the way you close your eyes and tip your head back when we kiss. I like the way you nibble your lower lip when you're starting to feel sexy.' He kissed Snow's forehead, the tip of his nose, his chin, before returning to his mouth. This time their tongues stroked together, slowly, sinuously. Snow was breathing a little faster, and he felt for Sable's belt buckle with one hand.

'No. Shh. Let me lead.' He moved Snow's hand back to his shoulder and kissed the corner of his jaw, then the side of his neck, drawing a soft little mew of pleasure. He laid a trail of wet, sucking kisses down to Snow's collarbone, revelling in the growing heat and faintly oily taste of his skin. Meantime, he trailed his hands around from Snow's back, drawing his fingernails over his ribcage, softly snagging in his worn teeshirt, and stroked his chest, seeking his nipples through the fabric.

'Kiss me more,' Snow breathed. Sable obliged, pressing the two soft little nubs of flesh between his fingers and thumbs, feeling them stiffen and swell as he rubbed them, the old poly-cotton increasing the friction.

'How does this feel?'

'Warm.  _Good.'_  Snow moved his hips lazily, making the leather of the couch creak. 'Go lower.'

'Shh. I'm leading.' He slipped his hands under Snow's shirt, pressed his palms to his skin and gently slid them upward, lifting the shirt as he went. Bending low, he kissed just above Snow's navel, then worked upward to cover one nipple with his mouth, slowly twirling his tongue-tip around it, working the tender areola. Snow drew his breath in with a soft hiss; Sable moved to the other nipple, pinching the wet one between thumb and forefinger as he went. Working the hard little bump back and forth, he felt Snow arching his back, pressing up closer.

'Aah...'

'Mm?'

'Get  _down_  there, you bastard.'

'M-mm.' Once again, he drew his nails softly over Snow's ribcage, over the bare skin this time, and felt him shiver uncontrollably as waves of gooseflesh chased each other down his sides and back. He lingered just long enough to make Snow groan in protest before trailing his tongue-tip downward, dipping into his navel. There was a fine hard peak in Snow's cargos, straining up at him. He slowly undid the snap at the waist and pulled down the zipper, breathing in the rich warm musk of Snow's arousal. 

'You make my mouth water,' he managed to say, his throat thick and his tongue clumsy. He scrambled down to kneel on the floor, tugging the pants down around Snow's ankles, pushing his knees apart, gripping his thighs as he took the head of his cock in his mouth and sucked for all he was worth. Oh, God, the salt of it, the heat, the thick shaft and the round head, surging and bobbing against the roof of his mouth as Snow's hips hitched upward. Sable groaned and strained to take him deeper, to swallow him up.

'Oh,  _yes,'_  Snow breathed, reaching down to rub his shaft, his balls, thrusting eagerly into Sable's mouth. 'Eat me. I'm the only thing you like to eat, aren't I? Aren't I? You like  _my_  creme filling, don't you? Oh,  _fuck,_  yes.' His back arched convulsively and he gasped as he came, pushing ever upward and inward. When the moment of joy ended he collapsed, panting, his half-lidded eyes empty, a blissful smile curling his lips. ' _Oh_  yes.'

Sable licked him clean, as clean as Snow could ever be, and planted a kiss at the base of his cock before lifting his head. 'I enjoyed that,' he said, 'but the potty-talk adds nothing.'

'Huh.' It was half a breath, half a laugh. 'You're so prim sometimes.' Snow still could not stop smiling. 'You'll suck my dick like candy but-' Sable stopped him with a deep, hard kiss, his tongue prodding into his mouth roughly.

'You have such a dirty mouth,' he growled.

'And you have an oral/anal fixation. We're even.'

'Shut  _up.'_  He kissed him again, voracious, then got to his feet, stripping off his shirt.

'You ca-an't make me,' Snow sang softly. 'Dick. Fuck. Balls. Asshole. Oh,  _nice_  dick.' Sable's pants hit the floor and he stepped out of them, straddling Snow's lap and rising on his knees, pushing his erection in his face.

'Take this in your mouth and  _be quiet.'_  He braced his arms on the back of the couch and moaned as Snow obeyed, reaching up to stroke his tense thighs and squeeze his buttocks. He was still humming, sending delicious vibrations into Sable's thrumming flesh. His tongue probed the slit at the tip of his cock and toyed with his foreskin. He cupped a hand around Sable's balls, weighing them, softly squeezing them, sending hot jolts of apprehensive pleasure through him, curled his fingertips behind them and worked the sensitive perineal valley. Sable cried out, and bit his lip, trying to hold it in. A fingertip brushed his anus and he seized Snow's hand.

'No,' he panted, 'you don't go there.'

'One day I'll go there,' Snow told him, his smile almost mocking. 'One day you'll invite me in.'

'Not today. Turn over and spread your legs.  _Good_  boy.' He parted Snow's white buttocks and nuzzled in to kiss and lick, pressing his tongue against the tight opening, feeling it start to yield. He rose and held his hand under Snow's chin. 'Spit.' Snow spat petroleum jelly; he smeared his cock and pushed his middle finger firmly into Snow's rear, enjoying his sharp cry.  
'It doesn't hurt, does it?'

'No. Oh,  _God.'_  He squirmed as Sable inserted his index finger and gently moved them in and out.

'Now, I can do this for a  _while...'_

'Don't, God, don't, do me. Do it  _now.'_

'Of course I will, love.' He held his breath as he slid in, clutching Snow's hips, feeling the resistance melt, feeling himself enveloped in tight, silky heat. _I could sink in forever._  He had to pause, head spinning, at his deepest penetration and struggle back from the point of orgasm. Snow had his forehead on the back of the couch and both hands between his legs, tugging frantically.

'Slow down,' Sable whispered. He drew back until just the tip of his cock was inside Snow's warmth, then plunged in to his full length.  _Yes._  Slowly out, and  _in._   _God, yes._  He drew back and thrust in, a little faster. The most rapturous heat was building in his balls and his gut, his blood becoming sweet fire as the pulse pounded in his groin. He was losing control, but it didn't matter now; he had slowed down when he needed to. His strokes grew quicker, his breathing louder and hoarser; Snow thrust back against him, shouting for joy, shouting a string of loving profanities. Sweat beaded and ran in thin rivers over their skin, merging where their bodies met so that each thrust produced a swampy smack. Everything, everything grew hotter and quicker and stronger and sweeter, until  _now_  was perfect and went on forever and he roared his delight, coming endlessly.

Sable slumped over Snow's back, felt him give weakly, and pulled him along as he rolled sideways onto his back on the couch. They sprawled together, gasping for air, hearts crashing against their ribs.

Snow tried to speak, could not, swallowed and tried again. 'I think we ruined your couch,' he whispered.

'It's good,' Sable murmured into Snow's hair.

'I mean, I shot a  _load_  on it.'

'Hmm.' Sable kissed his ear.

'You don't give a shit, do you?'

'M-mm.' The side of his neck.

'I really love you.'

* * *

**Seven: In which the excrement hits the air conditioner.**

When you wanted to speak to Death, the meeting was strictly stalk and talk. Scarlet and De Wit found him making hospital rounds in Ontario. Since he preferred to go unseen, they followed suit, trailing him invisibly through Intensive Care. De Wit's attempts to be matey met with a distinctly cool reception, and after exchanging glances they decided to get right to the point.

'We want to talk with you about... the team,' Scarlet said. She glanced uneasily at the ancient woman being disconnected from life support. Natural causes had never quite clicked for her. The woman was almost gone in spirit already. Her middle-aged son sat at the bedside holding her wizened hand; his face was blotchy and tearstained, but calm. Inside this little blue-curtained space, there was such... peace. Creepy.

WHAT ABOUT IT? Death asked, taking the old woman's other hand and lifting her from the bed. Her shade flickered for a moment, as if she shook herself briskly, and she set out purposefully into the darkness of his opened cloak. Death turned and walked on, the scarlet woman and the white doctor scurrying in his wake.

'The, em, the recent change of personnel,' De Wit said. He was feeling uncomfortable too, in such an antiseptic environment. The nurses looked so strict and clean that he'd felt he was really getting away with something adding a dab of golden staph to the chap recovering from bypass surgery by the door. De Wit liked his nurses overtired and careless, not bright and efficient like this shift.

A VACANCY WAS CREATED BY YOUR RESIGNATION AND HAS BEEN COMPETENTLY FILLED, Death replied. He turned his head, scenting or sighting, and set out for the neonatal ward. THIS IS A SUBJECT FOR DISCUSSION?

'Well, yes, on account of I'm not entirely happy with it, and nor's our lady friend.' De Wit coughed into his filthy handkerchief and dabbed some blood from his lips; he was trialling a new strain of tuberculosis today. It was always fun to rework the old favourites.

'We wanted to ask you what  _you_  thought,' Scarlet said, and smiled winningly. 'We value your opinion.'

YOU WANTED TO SOUND ME OUT BEFORE TACKLING POLLUTION. YOU HOPED TO SECURE MY SUPPORT AND DEMORALISE HIM, PRESENTING HIM WITH AN APPARENT FAIT ACCOMPLI. Death lifted a tiny preemie in the palm of one hand; he closed his hand and opened it, and the little shade was gone. They walked away from the shrilling of the monitor.

'Well, you do rather have the deciding vote,' Scarlet fluttered. 'Sable is sure to be for him, and I know I'm against him, so...'

AND SINCE WHEN ARE WE A DEMOCRACY? Death turned and loomed over them, a dark, angular figure. DO NOT TRY TO USE ME IN YOUR PETTY POLITICS, LITTLE RIDERS, FOR YOU ARE BUT THE MEANS AND I AM THE END. ALWAYS THE END. I WILL NOT DISCUSS THIS IN THE ABSENCE OF POLLUTION AND FAMINE.

'So that's the way the land lies,' De Wit grumbled. 'Got a soft spot for the lad too, have you? Like to bone him, har?'

A cold hand struck him to the floor. Scarlet winced and did not dare help him up.

I DO NOT ADMIRE POLLUTION. HE IS TRIVIAL, A DILETTANTE. BUT YOU ABANDONED YOUR DUTY. YOU GAVE UP.  _YOU GAVE UP._  IF I HAD EVER ALLOWED MYSELF THAT LUXURY... Death straightened and grew still; the feeling of horror in the air abated somewhat. THIS WILL NOT BE SETTLED BY A VOTE.

'No,' said a soft, light voice, a voice with the faint crumble of rust in it. Snow stepped out from behind a curtain, shabbily elegant in a tailored white suit and trenchcoat. His feet were bare and almost black with dirt. 'It will be settled by a challenge.'

* * *

**Eight: In which a thing or two is settled.**

Sable woke up, rolled over and reached out, and realised that he was alone. That was annoying. He'd wanted a nice direct segue from immoral dreams to immoral action. Snow was probably up on the roof watching the sun rise, or set, or something... Sable had rather lost track in the last few heady days. He dragged Snow's pillow over and pressed his nose and lips into the faint fog of him that hung around it.

His eyes snapped open as knowledge rushed in upon him, and he was gone the next second.

On a dark plain far from any place with a name, the two men in white faced each other. As Sable arrived, still pulling the semblance of clothes together around him, Scarlet was just seating herself in a deckchair, Bloody Mary in hand. Death stood by, gazing stonily.

'What's going on?' Sable panted. 'What are they doing?'

'They're going to fight for us,' Scarlet purred. 'It's so perfect. Two white knights. Two men enter, one man leaves.' She gave a girlish wriggle of pleasure.

'I won't have this,' Sable growled, striding over to the duellists. They were standing a good ten feet apart, eyeing one another. He glimpsed without interest that Pestilence was in his doctor's guise again, before taking Snow by the shoulders and firmly propelling him away to talk apart.

'What do you think you're  _doing?'_  he hissed.

'What I must,' Snow replied calmly. 'I'm grateful that you're concerned about me, but it doesn't change anything.'

'A challenge! A bloody challenge! We've never had such a thing.'

'Everyone knew it was possible,' Snow said, still with that terrible empty calm. 'I'm simply the first to take it up. I challenge the old pest to prove that he deserves his job back.'

'You challenged  _him?_  Christ on a bike, Snow! You went  _looking_  for this?'

'You don't think I can win?' Snow asked quizzically. 'I thought you believed in me.'

'I do, look, you don't have to  _prove_  anything for me. You can still step back from this. Let him have it, who cares for him? You can-'

'Stay at home, while you have the real job, like your  _wife?_  What a strange idea. What made you think I was doing this for you? I love you, but this is for  _me.'_  Snow smiled at him and gently pushed him aside.

Sable had one last try. 'I can't let you risk this. I can't do without you now. He fights dirty.'

'Well,  _no-one_  knows dirty like I do.' Snow stripped off his trenchcoat and put it in Sable's arms, with a dry brush of a kiss on his cheek. 'Hold my coat?'

Sable set his teeth, nodded and stepped back. He returned to Scarlet, who had now equipped herself with a picture hat, cat's eye sunglasses and a table to hold the pitcher of Bloody Maries. She offered him a deckchair, but he could not sit. There was a tight knot inside him and he knew it would either unravel or break very soon.

'Did you put him up to this, you bitch?' he enquired bitterly.

'Darling, I didn't even have to,' she beamed.

Death stepped forward and held up his hands. ON THIS FIELD, he intoned, POLLUTION CHALLENGES PESTILENCE FOR HIS PLACE AS A HORSEMAN OF THE APOCALYPSE. THE RESULT OF THIS BOUT WILL BE CONCLUSIVE. NO HOLDS ARE BARRED. He reached into the darkness of his shadow and withdrew the silver crown. He set it on Scarlet's table with the lightest chink. THE WINNER MAY CLAIM THIS CROWN.

'The lion and the unicorn,' Scarlet murmured. She licked her lips.

LET IT BEGIN, Death said.

De Wit and Snow drew closer, circling and watching one another like cats. De Wit's hands were shaking with palsy, but it would be a grave error to think he was weak. Sable was gnawing at his lip, his hands working and pinching at one another under the bundle of Snow's coat.

De Wit's right hand flashed, and a rusty hypodermic syringe stood quivering in Snow's right eye. He screamed as blood and vitreous humour ran down his cheek.

'First blood!' Scarlet shrieked.

Snow wrenched the syringe from his eyesocket and threw it to the ground. The ruined remnants of his eye squirmed to reform themselves, reconstituting an oily, gelatinous globe, even as red fronds of fungus webbed his white lashes. He wiped them away and shook his head, grinning dangerously.

De Wit gagged and put a hand to his throat. With a choking sound, crude oil began to spill from his mouth and nose, smothering him from the inside. His face blackened and he fell to his hands and knees, vomiting sludge. However, after a moment he heaved up the last of it and lifted his head, drooling mucus and oil from mouth and nose. He glared balefully at Snow as he lurched to his feet.

Snow shuddered. A rash of acne spread over his face, thickening and distorting his fine features. He shook it off and its place was taken by fever so powerful that he seemed to be cooking before their eyes, sweat pouring off him until his pores ran dry and his forehead looked ready to blister. But this, too, broke and faded. It left him weakened, enervated, but with a deadly determination in his queer blank eyes.

'What do you have left to throw at me, dirt?' De Wit hacked. 'Smoke? Radioactivity? The Big C is my little pal.' He drew a scalpel from his sleeve, a rusty monstrosity caked with dried gobbets of flesh, and threw it like a dart. Snow raised his arm to shield his face and the blade thudded home, releasing gore over his grubby white sleeve.

'Have another! Leprosy on this one!' De Wit spat on the blade, and threw again. 'Necrotising fasciitis! Syphilis! Gonorrhoea! Athlete's foot! Bubonic plague! The sweat! Mumps! Measles! Chlamydia! Herpes simplex, herpes zoster! Pneumonic plague! Anthrax! And what have you got, twentieth century boy? What have you got?  _What have you got?'_

Snow was rocking, only just staying on his feet, his arms, shoulders and back bristling with filthy steel.

Sable was biting his fist, blood running in his mouth; Scarlet gripped her glass so tightly that it cracked. Death watched in silence.

De Wit advanced on Snow, drawing from nowhere a crusted Liston knife. He grabbed a handful of Snow's greasy hair and yanked his head back, exposing his pale throat.

Snow swallowed once. 

'I want to say just one word to you,' he croaked. 'Just one.'

De Wit grunted in triumph. 

'Are you listening?' Snow's hoarse whisper echoed and boomed around the dark plain.

'Plastics.'

The bag was over De Wit's head before anyone could blink. As he drew his breath in with shock, it vacuum-sealed itself to his mouth and nostrils. With an acrid stink, it melted to his neck, a bubbling film.

Sable saw the next seconds in flashes, as if a strobe light were the only illumination. De Wit fell back, clutching at his throat. The knife fell to the ground. Snow seized it. In the recoil of the same movement, he whipped his arm around and laid De Wit's neck open to the backbone. Blood and ichor fountained. Snow struck once again and the head thudded at his feet, then the body fell like an empire.

A high, thin scream rose from Scarlet's throat. The glass shattered in her hand; blood and tomato juice ran freely together down her creamy forearm.

Snow had fallen to his knees beside the corpse, a hunched and bloodstained porcupine. As he shivered, the scalpels fell from him, tinkling and clanking on the ground. The body of Pestilence was deliquescing rapidly, falling into ruin and putrescence, becoming liquid. Pollution put his hands down in the stinking puddles and the foulness ran under his nails and into his veins, infiltrating his flesh.

_Oh, fuck,_  Sable thought.  _He found another way to win._

Pollution threw his head back and screamed, then opened his throat and truly roared. White lightning crackled on the horizon and spat from his fingertips and the ends of his hair. He turned to face them, gasping, cheeks glowing, tears pouring from his eyes.

'I know... I have... I  _am_  everything he was,' Pollution breathed. 'And I'm still  _me.'_  He held out a shaking hand and the crown flew to it. He set it on his head and the tarnish overran its surface before it melted into quicksilver drops that flowed into his ears and eyes and vanished.

Famine stared at Pollution, shaken to the core. He looked different now. Was he bigger? Was he older? Was there a new darkness or light in his eyes? It was all of these and none. He was simply  _more._

Death had simply left; the issue was concluded and he had work to do. War strode up to Pollution, drew her arm back, and threw a punch that spun him around and dropped him to the ground. She screamed again, standing over him, nursing her hand to her chest. Famine put a warning hand on her shoulder.

'Stop now,' he said gently, 'and we'll let you walk away.' She raked his face with her crimson nails and ran.

Sable let his breath out slowly, blinking away the pain. He lowered himself to one knee at Snow's side. 

'Are you all right?' he asked.

Snow lifted a shining face towards him. 'I'm fine,' he said. 'I'm better than fine.'

'You're a new man,' Sable joked feebly.

'No. Just your same old boy.' Snow hooked a hand behind his head and drew him down for a kiss, but felt his hesitation. 'What's wrong?'

'Can you really still...  _settle_  for me?'

'I have to. Because you can't do without me now.' They kissed and doubt melted away.

FIN


End file.
